[Kate's Boys 05] - A Lawman for Christmas

by Marie Ferrarella

  She wasn’t sure if he was pulling her leg or not. His expression certainly didn’t enlighten her any. “Nice to know you have your priorities straight.”

  “I’ll do just about anything to get out of doing paperwork,” he told her absently as he experimented with another connection. Whatever he did seemed to please him.

  “Okay,” he said, putting his hand up next to hers beneath the hood. “Put the key into the ignition again. See if it starts now.”

  Kelsey had grave doubts, but she did as he told her. Turning the key, she began tapping on the accelerator, giving the car gas. The newer models were supposed to start up without that, but her mother’s car had always been a bit temperamental.

  On the third tap, the engine responded with a rumble that increased in strength.

  “It’s alive,” she pronounced, imitating Dr. Frankenstein in the classic horror movie.

  Instead of letting the hood fall the way he had last time, Morgan eased it down gently. “Whatever you do, don’t turn it off. I want you to drive it over to my house,” he reminded her.

  “Not until you give me the address,” she answered.

  He’d forgotten about that. Morgan rattled off the address. “I’ll be right behind you.”

  Kelsey hesitated. “Got a better idea. You lead the way, I’ll follow. If the car dies, I’ll honk the horn to let you know.”

  It made no difference to him which way they did it. He just thought she’d prefer to be out front, but her way would still allow him to call in without fear of losing sight of her. He needed to let dispatch know why he was going to be late getting the squad car back to the precinct.

  “Okay,” he nodded. “Give me a second.”

  Crossing back to the squad car, Morgan started the vehicle and then swung it around in front of her. It was time for her to play follow the leader, he thought, a smile curving his mouth.

  “Where were you?” Kate asked when her daughter finally walked into the house.

  “Busy playing musical cars with Officer Donnelly,” Kelsey quipped. “First he took me to your car—it doesn’t look happy,” she confided. “Then I followed him to his house—”

  “His house?” Kate did her best not to look pleased. Nothing put Kelsey off faster than when she believed she was being manipulated. Still, Kelsey could do a lot worse than the young officer.

  Kelsey tossed down her purse and straddled the arm of the sofa. “Turns out he’s a closet mechanic and will fix the car for you. He almost insisted on it. You created quite an impression on him, Mom,” she said with a grin. “Anyway, then he brought me back here.” Kelsey shrugged. “Not much of a story really.” Her voice grew more serious as she appraised her mother. “How are you feeling?”

  Kate ran her hand along her extremely flat stomach, trying to smooth down the unsettling churning.

  “Like I’m going to throw up.” She pressed her lips together, trying to think of other things.

  Kelsey wondered if she should bring over a pail or the wastepaper basket from the kitchen. “I thought that only happened with first babies.”

  Kate took in a long, cleansing breath. She longed for some tea to settle her stomach. “Seeing as how it’s been twenty-six years between pregnancies, this is practically like having a first baby.”

  “For the second time around,” Kelsey commented. This whole thing was crazy, as if the world was somehow out of whack. And yet, there was this small, solid starburst of joy smack in the center of her being.

  There was no denying it. She loved children almost as much as her mother did.

  “But that’s not why I feel like I’m going to throw up,” Kate confided in a lowered voice, despite the fact that only the two of them were in the house.

  “Oh?” And then Kelsey guessed what caused her mother’s unease. “You’re afraid of what Dad’s going to say.”

  “Not say so much as feel,” Kate admitted. She twisted her fingers together. “This is a lot to spring on him.”

  Kelsey had always been honest with her mother. She saw no reason to change now, even if this wasn’t the easiest of subjects for a daughter to discuss with her mother.

  “This is a lot to spring on all of us, Mom.” Her mother looked a bit distressed. Kelsey quickly continued. “I mean, I know you guys love each other and all that, but I guess at this point in your married lives, I thought that your expressions of love were more or less restricted to holding hands and occasionally indulging in deep, soulful kisses.”

  Shaking her head in amusement, Kate ran her hands through the girl’s hair.

  “Someday, my darling daughter, when your skin isn’t quite as flawless as it is today, you’ll come to realize the true meaning in that poem.”

  That had come completely out of left field. “What poem?”

  “‘Come grow old along with me, the best is yet to be,’” Kate said, reciting her favorite line out of a poem by Robert Browning. And then she patted Kelsey’s hand.

  “Shouldn’t you be getting back to school? I don’t need a babysitter, honey.”

  “I’m not babysitting,” she protested a bit too quickly. “I told them at the school I didn’t know if I was going to be back today.” And then she backtracked a little.

  “At least I think I did. Everything after talking to you on the phone is still a little hazy. Besides,” she staked out a place on the sofa, “I thought I’d hang around here today, see if you need anything, need someone to catch you in case you faint again, things like that.”

  Kate took her daughter’s hand and drew her up to her feet. “I’m fine, really. Go back to work.”

  Well, she had left them in a bad way. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were trying to get rid of me, Mom.”

  Kate grinned. She was gently guiding her daughter to the front door. “I am. I’ve changed my mind. I can handle this. Thank you for coming as quickly as you did—

  now go.”

  Kelsey paused in the doorway. She didn’t want her mother to think she was hovering, but she didn’t feel good about just leaving her. “You sure you don’t need anything?”

  Kate smiled. When she spoke, her accent was particularly strong. “Oh, a shot of my da’s liquid courage, maybe.” She reconsidered her words and gave Kelsey a rueful expression. “But then, I can’t have that for the next nine months.”

  “Speaking of ‘da,’ when are you going to tell Dad?” Kelsey asked.

  “Today,” Kate answered. She’d already made up her mind. But suddenly weary, she took a deep breath. “I just have to find the right words.”

  “How about ‘Hi, honey, I’ve got a new tax deduction for you’?”

  Kate shook her head. “Very funny, Kelsey.”

  “I wasn’t trying to be funny,” Kelsey told her mother. “I was trying to temper the shock with a positive piece of information.”

  “He’s not going to be in shock,” Kate protested. But then her words echoed back to her. “He’s going to be in shock, isn’t he?”

  “Can’t really blame him, Mom. You were in shock when you found out,” Kelsey reminded.

  But that was different. “It was for just a few seconds.”

  “With luck,” Kelsey deadpanned, “Dad’ll come out of his shock just before he has to rush you into the delivery room.” Kelsey leaned over and pressed a kiss to her mother’s temple. “Just kidding, Mom. After he realizes you haven’t just developed a weird sense of humor, he’ll be thrilled.”

  Thrilled was a rather powerful word. “I don’t know if I’d go that far…”

  Kelsey gave her a vague little shrug. “Might as well keep a positive attitude about this.” Reaching for the doorknob, she paused as a thought hit her. “Just make me a promise.”

  Raising five children had taught Kate never to make a promise until she heard all the details. “Yes?”

  “Don’t tell the guys without me there. I want to see their reaction. You can tell Dad,” she realized they needed their privacy for this, “but not Mike and the other
s unless I’m there. Please,” she added in case her mother didn’t think she was serious.

  “All right, I promise.” Kate sighed and shook her head. “There’s something decidedly fiendish about you at times, my darling daughter.”

  Kelsey gave her an innocent, angelic smile. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mom. See you in a few hours,” she promised. Once outside, Kelsey fought the very strong urge to call up one of her brothers. It didn’t matter which one as long as she could tell one of them. She could almost feel the secret bubbling up inside of her, threatening to choke her.

  Despite a fair amount of fighting between them when she was growing up and then again when she began dating, during which time they had taken it upon themselves to scare off every guy who came to the house, she and her brothers were close. Very close.

  Moreover, there were no secrets in the family, except for perhaps when she was seeing Dan. But that had been done on the sly only because her brothers had been so hard on any guy she ever brought home.

  So she hadn’t told any of them, not even her mother, about Dan, and that had turned out even worse. In hindsight, she had no doubt that if her brothers had met the object of her young, foolish affections, one of them—most likely Trent—would have looked into Dan’s background and found out that the patrolman was married. It would have hurt, of course, but less than when she’d accidentally found out for herself. By then, she’d given her heart away. Reclaiming it, she’d gotten the organ back in little pieces, after which time she’d taken it off the market. But other than that, there were no secrets in her family, no continuing mysteries.

  Kelsey eased the door closed behind her and went down the front walk.

  This was going to knock all of them for a loop. She really hoped that her mother would opt to tell her brothers very, very soon because she really didn’t know how long she could refrain from saying something or having something slip out. It wasn’t that she couldn’t keep a secret. Just that she knew her limitations. She couldn’t keep a secret when it came to her family.

  Reaching her car, Kelsey glanced over her shoulder at the house where she’d grown up and lived until recently. She was still in the process of moving her things from one place to another, but right now, she wasn’t thinking about the outer trappings of her independence. She was thinking about her mother. She wanted to remain with her mother, to care for her rather than the other way around. Her mother had selflessly been there for her, whether it was convenient or not. This was an instance when turnabout would only have been fair play.

  But she had the feeling that her mother wanted to be alone right now. To rehearse what she would say to her father when he came home. And to maybe get used to this huge curveball life had thrown her. Granted her mother loved babies, but despite her protests, this had to be difficult to accept. This wasn’t like picking out new wallpaper for the downstairs powder room. This had lasting repercussions. Life, the way her parents knew it, had changed forever.

  But she supposed that her mother was right. She needed to get back to work and let the dust on this settle. A baby.

  Who would have thought it?

  Kelsey caught herself grinning as she drove back to her school. Chapter Five

  T he briefcase slipped out of Bryan Marlowe’s hand, falling to the floor with a thwack. He’d intended to place the briefcase next to the table by the front door, but Kate’s unexpected announcement in response to his greeting had stopped him dead in his tracks and caused every muscle in his body to go lax. The sound of the briefcase hitting the travertine floor jolted him back.

  Shaking his head, Bryan bent down to pick up the fallen case. This time, he parked it beside the table. As he straightened up again, Bryan flashed Kate a sheepish smile and quickly brushed his lips against hers.

  “Sorry, Kate. I’ve had a rather rough day in court. Judge Wallace has to be the most adversarial judge on the bench these days,” he sighed. “I actually thought I heard you say that you’re—”

  “Pregnant,” Kate repeated quietly, finishing his sentence for him. She took a breath, not sure how to gauge his reaction. “You did. I am.”

  Like a man in a trance, Bryan stared at her. “You’re sure?”

  He was upset, Kate thought. Maybe she should have sprung this on him slowly.

  “The doctor is.”

  That surprised him, too. She hadn’t said anything about going to the doctor today. Ordinarily, they shared little details like that, no matter how busy they were.

  “You’ve already been to the doctor?”

  She nodded her head. “Not exactly voluntarily.”

  Kate paused for a moment, trying to find the best way to word this part of the narrative. There really wasn’t a good way, so she simply forged ahead. She knew that some wives would have omitted this part or covered it up somehow. Husbands, at least husbands who cared as deeply as hers did, had a tendency to overdramatize in their heads a situation where bushes and crashing cars were involved. She didn’t want to cause Bryan any anguish, but she could no more cover this up—or lie—to her husband than she could suddenly grow fins and dive down to the ocean floor.

  She took another, deeper breath, then said, “I fainted.”

  Bryan instantly knew there was more to it than that. Searching her face, he put his hands on her arms to keep her in place. His eyes were on hers. “Where?”

  Kate didn’t try to look away. “In the car.”

  “You were driving?”

  He’d actually gone pale. Maybe she shouldn’t have been this truthful, Kate thought, regretting what he had to be going through. What she’d be going through if the tables were turned.

  “Yes,” she said in a small voice.

  Bryan’s hold on her arms tightened as her words sank in. His imagination took over. “Oh God, Kate, you could have been killed.”

  Kate glossed over that. Pointing out that she hadn’t been killed wouldn’t help. Instead, she gave him the details as succinctly as possible.

  “I drove into the bushes. It happened on University Drive, just outside the college campus. I was on my way to work,” she explained. “I fainted without any warning, just the way I had when I was first pregnant with Kelsey. But there was only that one time with her,” she reminded him, hoping that would help to keep him from blowing the incident out of proportion and from fearing that there would be more fainting spells in the future. “And I’m fine now, really.”

  Bryan couldn’t get himself to let go of her. After all these years of marriage, she was even more precious to him than ever. “You’re sure?”

  Sympathy filled her eyes. “Bryan, when have I ever lied to you?”

  “Never,” he admitted. Trying to move past the vivid scene in his head, he took a deep breath. “A baby?”

  Nodding, she smiled warmly. Maybe it wasn’t going to be so hard for him to accept this latest twist in their lives after all. “A baby.”

  Bryan let the information sink in. He knew he wasn’t exactly at the best age to start all over again, but it was doable. “It’s been a long time since we had one of those in the house,” he said, his eyes meeting hers again. “I wonder if things have changed.”

  Kate laughed softly. “Not the basics. They still need to be fed and loved.”

  “And changed,” he interjected, unconsciously wrinkling his nose as he said it.

  “There’s that, too,” Kate allowed. And then she threaded her arms around his neck, just a wife with her husband, not a professional couple who had already raised five children. “Are you very disappointed?”

  “Disappointed?” he echoed, puzzled as he encircled her waist with his arms and held her closer to him. “Why would I be disappointed? It’s not like I asked for a pony and got this instead.”

  Laughing, Kate shook her head. “No, I mean, well, you talked about traveling…”

  He’d mentioned early retirement once or twice and the plans he had for their future.

  To allay her fears, Bryan stole a quick kiss. �
��That’s all that it was, Kate, just talk. Despite my occasional grumbling—like today—I like what I do. I really don’t want to retire.” His eyes skimmed over his wife’s very trim form. “And now I have a reason not to,” he quipped. “Have you seen what college tuitions have gone up to these days?”

  Kate pressed her hands against his chest, as if to stop his flow of words. “Wait, wait, the baby’s not even born yet. I think we can hold off for a while before getting him or her enrolled in college.”

  The news—and the changes it was going to cause in their world—was still sinking in. And he was happy. Having another baby might be interesting.

  “It’ll be happening before you know it.” Bryan framed her face with his hands. “I love you, Mrs. Marlowe.”

  “And I love you, Mr. Marlowe,” Kate echoed back just before her husband kissed her warmly and deeply. She leaned into him, absorbing every nuance with every fiber of her being, her soul lighting up.

  Which is how Kelsey found them a minute later as she let herself in with her house key.

  “Hey, break it up, you two,” she chided, pocketing her keys. “That’s how you got into this mess in the first place.”

  Kate was still holding on to her husband’s waist as she shifted slightly to face their daughter.

  “It’s not a mess, Kelsey,” Bryan protested and then he stopped, surprised. “She knows?” he asked Kate. Kate nodded. “I called her from the hospital,” she confessed.

  She could see that the news stung him a little. “Her and not me?”

  Kate rested her head against his shoulder, relief and comfort setting in. “You had a big case in court today. You told me that last night. I wasn’t about to draw your focus away from that. If I’d called to tell you I was in an accident, you would have dropped everything and come running. Clients don’t appreciate that,” she reminded him.

  “Okay, I’ll accept that. What’s your excuse?” Bryan turned toward Kelsey. “Why didn’t you call me when you found out?”

  Kelsey pointed to her mother. “She made me promise not to tell.”